


Meetings

by Silvia_Blake



Series: Towards Liberty [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Implied Slash, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-02
Updated: 2014-09-02
Packaged: 2018-02-15 19:47:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2241228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvia_Blake/pseuds/Silvia_Blake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meeting someone for the first time can be fun, but meeting someone again after being apart for so long? That's what the spark lives for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rumble

**Author's Note:**

> Title(s): Meetings and Frenzy, Rumble, Hand Holding Trouble  
> Link to artwork: http://paper-kraken.tumblr.com/private/96432391271/tumblr_nb9f2aXflo1sq640n  
> Artist: grimcognito  
> Author: Silvia_Blake  
> Continuity: Transformers G1  
> Rating: Mature  
> Characters/pairings: Rumble, Frenzy, Soundwave, Megatron, Lazerbeak, Ravage  
> Content advice/warnings: Implied Sexual Violence, Abuse, Slavery, Discussions of Death  
> Summary: Meeting someone for the first time can be fun, but meeting someone again after being apart for so long? That's what the spark lives for.  
> Notes: Relies heavily on Five Faces of Darkness Part 4 explanation of Megatron's creation.

Rumble's denta snapped together in irritation. Some days just weren't fragging worth getting up for, and this was most definitely one of them. He'd already been trampled, twice, by his idiot shift-mates, and could feel his tank aching from not having quite enough fuel in the morning. This would mark the sixth cycle in a row, and the feeling was starting to grate.

Sighing, Rumble shook himself and rebooted his sensor-net. One step at a time, he reminded himself with a twisted smirk, one step at a time and pray that nothing's left to fall out from under you.

“Hey! MIC! Move or get squished pipsqueak!”

Jerking flat against the cave tunnel wall, Rumble looked up in time to see two haulers rush by with a full cart of energon. His tank gave a sickly lurch. Just thinking about that much fuel set off tremors in his motor relays. The feeling made him gag, cutting off his scathing reply to the slur flung his way. He knew it wouldn't do anything but get him another dent for his indignation, but it was the principle of the thing!

Snarling under his breath about what he would do to the fraggers next time they found themselves in a dark tunnel alone, Rumble continued down the network of mine tunnels like a mech condemned.

Every cycle it was the same routine. Get up, finish any maintenance left over from the cycle before (there always was), grab his work ration, drink the purple sludge without retching (more difficult than it sounded), and head down into the mines. Systems returning to idle, Rumble tried to pry himself away from his thoughts.

As he passed tunnel D-7 Rumble took a quick glance over to remind himself of why you didn't get distracted for anything.

Frames and rocks created a twisted barrier from top to bottom, left to right. The poor glitches that had been caught in the initial collapse were the lucky ones. The ones further into D-7... Well, at least he was free to leave.

Rumble nodded to himself as he thought.

He could still get up and walk away from this Pit of a job, and go find Somewhere Else. He wouldn't, but he could, and that's what kept him from falling into recharge one cycle and not waking up the next.

Starving, dirty, glitching, and constantly in need of better treatment than he ever got, at least he could walk away. 

He was free.


	2. Frenzy

Sitting, small and delicate in his designated corner, Frenzy tried not to listen to the conversations going on around him. It wasn't his place to know things, he was supposed to be pretty and cute. He wasn't supposed to listen to the senator talk about his plans to shut down another mine. He wasn't supposed to notice that the Iaconian representative had disappeared with a lecherous look, his aide in hand and looking considerably less excited about what was happening. He wasn't supposed to know everyone's name and position. And he definitely wasn't supposed to remember everything he saw.

But he did. He couldn't, not, remember. He'd tried, he'd tried so had every time!

Swallowing against stiff throat tubing, Frenzy's gaze stayed locked on the far wall even as the Simfur delegate approached him.

“Such a small creature,” The femme muttered to herself as her hand reached out towards him.

Frenzy's insides knotted in on themselves as he did everything he could to not flinch away from the reaching hand. People weren't supposed to touch him! People were supposed to party, and drink, and make cooing noises at him, and never, ever, touch!

“Clockwork,” A rich voice admonished politely, “you know you're not meant to touch.”

The femme's hand jerked back mere centimeters from his head. Frenzy's overclocked engine throttled back, but didn't drop back to idle.

She was here.

The femme looked away with false bashfulness as her optics dimmed sultrily. “I'm sorry Audio, but he's such a pretty little trinket. I couldn't help myself.”

Audio stepped up to Frenzy's left, towering over the micro-bot without even trying. Clockwork shifted her weight to his right, but didn't stop her poorly acted seduction.

“A trinket?” Audio asked quietly as she looked down at Frenzy. “Hardly a trinket Clockwork. This,” She gestured towards Frenzy with an unmistakable bloom of pride in her field, “is one of the finest pieces of machinery ever tooled. It is like no other, and no other will ever be like it.”

Frenzy managed to keep himself from recoiling at the utterly possessive waves that crashed into his side. A part of him wanted to warn Clockwork, wanted the politician to run as far and as fast as she could away from the monster to his left, but another part wanted what he knew was coming. 

Audio didn't take to people breaking her rules lightly. It didn't matter that Clockwork hadn't been successful in her attempt to touch. The attempt itself was the transgression, and not being truly contrite about it? The femme was screwed. It didn't matter how many friends in high places Clockwork had, Audio would have her way, and that would be the end of it.

“Oh really,” Clockwork purred back as she crossed Frenzy's vision to delicately drape herself against Audio's side. “and what is so special?”

Audio smiled indulgently down at the shorter femme and shifted to allow the politician a better position under her arm. A subtle grab and squeeze had Clockwork's fans stuttering and her optics flashing.

“Why don't you stay after the party, and I'll give you a private showing?” She murmured as her hand currently not busy fondling the delegate came up to tilt her chin back.

Frenzy watched with resignation as Clockwork lost any chance of getting away. The delegate's orange optics glazed as she suddenly relaxed against Audio's larger chassis. A far away grin spread across her face as she replied with an affirmative.

Audio broke the optic contact to look at Frenzy. Clockwork blinked a moment, confused, but smiled victoriously as she turned to look at Frenzy as well.

He hadn't turned, hadn't moved, hadn't done anything to indicate that he'd received Audio's private instructions, but that didn't stop Audio's own grin from cleaving her face in two.

A shiver wracked his spark. He didn't like hurting people, even though he really, really did, and he didn't like being Audio's, even as a warm flush of pleasure started at his crown and worked it's way down.

Fed, polished, treated like a jewel, and all he wanted to do was run away screaming.

But he couldn't.


	3. Last Rites

Rumble's cycle did not start like every single one before it, in fact, it started with a nightmare and got worse from there.

Optics onlining like usual, Rumble couldn't understand why his tanks tried to drop out through his back for a few seconds.

And then he registered what his sensor's had already seen.

A crack, fine, and undetectable to anyone that didn't have his specifications, hung above his head in the cave ceiling like a death sentence. His vents careened into the red as he continued to stare upwards. His vocalizer tried to click on, but he couldn't seem to find the commands to control it.

A whimper finally managed to escape him as he tracked the crack across the ceiling. It was long, so long. And it had so many branching fissures! How had no one noticed? This was their fragging job!

“Hey, mic, what's your-” One of the mech's already up started to ask, but stopped when he looked up.

One by one the mechs in his bunk room turned silent as they noticed saw his fear white visor, and frozen frame. Most of them looked up, tracking his gaze, but by their confused looks it was easy to tell that they couldn't see what he saw. None of them had a clue.

Finally, the eldest of their number, Dipshot, asked, “Rumble?”

His name jerked him out of his paralysis, but it did nothing to assuage his fears. Slowly sitting up, head still tilted upwards to measure the micro-fissures that riddled their sleeping quarters, Rumble followed them forward, into the room.

His systems dropped from the red, not out of relief, but resignation as he saw how far the fissures had managed to travel. The lead fissure slammed right into their door frame, which was currently supported by the industrial grade door. 

The moment the door opened they were dead.

Rumble looked Dipshot in the optics and shook his head minutely. His processor was already taking his sensor data and working it over in every permutation he knew, and a few he came up with on the spot. Every plan his processor spat out at him led to failure, which, in this case, did not mean loss of product.

Compacting the data into a short burst, Rumble shot Dipshot a copy of his findings.

Dipshot's optics paled. The others still hadn't quite caught up with whatever was going on, but they all knew that something was wrong. They looked at each other, and then at Rumble.

Rumble took in a shaky vent and clenched his hands. He knew this had been a risk, all of them did, time to face the music. It's been a good run, he decided, as he thought over his life. It could have been better, Pit, could have been a lot better, but it could have been a lot worse too.

Panicked tones caught his attention, and he looked up from where he'd been staring at his hands.

Dipshot was doing his best to keep the peace as he broke the news that somewhere along the way things had gone wrong, and no it wasn't any one mech's fault, but no there wasn't anything to be done. Rumble couldn't blame them for their panic, but it didn't stop a little thread in him from feeling just slightly vindicated. 

Maybe, if they'd chipped in to keep him maintained better, his sensors would have picked up on the forming micro-fissures. 

Maybe, if people had heeded his advice on not tunneling so closely to the living quarters no matter how tempting the energon vein had been this wouldn't have happened.

Maybe, but now they'd never know.

With a soft sigh, Rumble got up and headed over to the fearful group so he could start answering their questions. It was going to take a while to convince them that yes, really they were going to die, and, no, there wasn't anything they could do.

If the door opened it wouldn't only collapse their room, but most likely the entire corridor, aka upwards of fifty mechanisms that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the door didn't open they'd die by starvation.

Rumble almost chuckled.

He should have walked away when he had the freedom.


	4. An Ending

Frenzy huddled in his room, under his berth, barely daring to vent. He'd never seen Audio so enraged.

A nervous tick in his left hip started, making him jiggle his leg uncontrollably. He hopped Audio wouldn't hear it. He didn't want her attention, he didn't want to have those eyes lock with his. He didn't want to hear her voice crackle against his insides again.

A slam from outside made him jump and wedge himself even farther under his berth.

Silence followed, eerie and thick. He could hear his insides clunking away, and desperately fought to quiet his natural noise. A sick grind of stress under cut the other noises as Frenzy focused inwards towards his Safe Place. If he could just reach it...

Droning started in the back of his mind. It grew louder until it filled his head and pushed everything else out. No pain, no fear, no stress, there was only the drone.

He didn't notice when his door opened, but he knew when he was being lifted. Thankfully, everything that happened felt far, far away.

He was free inside.


	5. Soundwave

Frenzy was barely holding together. Oh, physically he was absolutely fine, but mentally everything was tearing itself apart. His mind was a fine example of why telepaths were considered abominations before Primus.

Soundwave bobbed on the tidal waves of the micro-bots mind with admiration as much as fascination. Frenzy should have been a dead, burnt out husk vorns ago, but the micro-bot continued to hold on to what scraps of his mind were left with a city-formers strength. The conflicting orders Audio had given Frenzy over the vorns had taken their toll.

He wanted Frenzy.

A flicker of surprise glittered across his bonds.

Are you sure? Asked one.

He's going to be a handful. Said the other, resigned already to having a third added to their ranks.

Shouldn't we discuss this? Asked the first, confused.

He felt the same way about you, Feathers. There's no stopping him once he sets his sights on them. Just hang on and enjoy the ride. The second replied, amusement and excitement clear.

Soundwave retreated from Frenzy's mind, and returned to his body. A weight rested comfortingly upon his left shoulder, and another, much heavier, across his lap.

Ravage looked up at him with one optic, and the flick of an audio. Laserbeak nudged at the side of his helm insistently until he raised a hand and stroked the symbiot's head satisfactorily.

He could feel Laserbeak's nervousness, and sent a rush of warmth through the bonds to reassure the flyer. Ravage had already been through this once, and knew that Soundwave could care, perhaps even love, equally. 

Was it disconcerting? 

Yes.

In “normal” carrier culture would Soundwave be considered a deviant and freak for being more than willing to poach others symbiots? 

Absolutely.

Did anyone under their roof actually care?

Not in the slightest.

Smiling behind his mask, Soundwave began doing research. Just who exactly was this Audio, and how had she managed to get her grubby hands on such a lovely mechanism?


	6. Megatron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story heavily plays on the idea that Megatron was built in seclusion by a group of separatists for the purpose of revolution/conquering. Five Faces of Darkness Part 4 explains the full idea.

Megatron threw debris off of him with a flare of irritation. The collapse had been as unexpected as it had been sudden.

Now that he was free, Megatron stood, and scanned the area. He'd been practicing his forms, his builders watching...

Oh.

Megatron's optics flickered as he stared at the broken frame of one of his builders. The pink fluid they had referred to as energon during his lessons was splattered everywhere, and leaked from the dented gray edges of torn plating. 

He knew what death was, they had explained it to him when they had explained his purpose, but he'd never actually seen it before. It was... boring, he decided. Death was very boring.

Taking a deep vent, Megatron continued to scour the area for anything useful. The collapse had completely destroyed the makeshift ring he'd been practicing in, and the weapons and equipment that had once lined the walls were gone. Much of the floor was covered in debris and broken chunks of rock.

Megatron was about to write off the entire room when a soft noise interrupted his thought.

Interest caught, Megatron worked his way across the broken arena towards the noise. It came again before he was done, but it only spurred him onward.

Another splatter of pink caught his red optics, but unlike his builders' bodies that were grey, this one was still colored. It was hard to tell exactly what color it was, but there was enough shine there for the mech to still be alive.

Megatron dug down under the rock until he revealed the source of the sound.

It was so small.

His optics flickered in confusion as he took in the mangled form laying in a puddle of fluids at his feet. He'd never seen anyone so small. Granted his builders were smaller than him, but not by much, and they'd shown him pictures of the world above. He'd known they could be small, but to actually see it was something else entirely.

With a care he'd never shown before, Megatron knelt and lifted the twisted frame into his arms. The mech groaned a pitiable sound, and his optical band flickered with broken light. Gently Megatron laid his hand over the broken sensors and shifted backwards to sit amongst the destruction. The form in his arms whimpered and the little mech's vents quickened with fear.

“Hush,” Megatron commanded as he shifted the body to better suit his hold.

Time passed in the darkness, the little mech's vents grew weaker as more fluid sluggishly dripped from his broken body. Megatron hadn't been content to simply hold the mech for long. Carefully, understanding that there was severe damage, he had investigated the mech's body to the best of his ability. Everything was just so new, and tiny! It was a wonder to Megatron how the mech ever managed to survive, but survive he had.

Eventually Megatron could hear the sounds of scraping, and excavation. Soon after the first sounds were heard a portion of collapsed wall gave way. Four red gazes stared into the broken room, finding Megatron easily.

“Megatron?” One called softly. Confusion flared between the four as they watched their creation slowly stand, something curled to his chest.

Had he been hurt? A nervous tittering began on their inner comms as they discussed how to best address serious injuries. They hadn't explained failure to their creation yet, nor severe pain, but if one of his arms was maimed...

Surprise popped all of their gazes white.

A micro-bot, no longer than Megatron's torso, hung limply in their creation's arms.

Megatron looked down at the mech, and then stared steadily back at them as he walked forward. Before he passed them he stopped and said clearly, “I'm keeping him.”

There was no more discussion on the matter.


	7. Telepath Meet Revolutionary

The first time Soundwave felt Megatron, he was out with his family shopping. It was a painfully domestic and boring task, but it bore fruit to the start of a long and complicated life.

He had been speaking with Frenzy about whether to buy iron or steel shavings, and if it really mattered (No, it didn't as far as he was concerned but he enjoyed indulging the micro-bot.) when a focus so raw it stripped the first few layers from his mental defenses singled him out. He stumbled, but managed to catch himself.

Frenzy jerked forward, hands up and pressed against Soundwave's upper thigh. Concern wrapped around his spark as Frenzy looked up into his visor.

Boss?

Someone here has a gift. Someone has noticed m-

Soundwave's visor brightened as he righted himself and scanned the crowd. No one was staring, no one even seemed to have noticed that he'd almost fallen, but someone was watching. 

Watching them not him. 

Soundwave felt uncertainty creep into his spark as he tried to pinpoint the source of the attention. He was used to stares, he knew he was attractive, and with his entourage he knew people would pay attention, but the focus wasn't on him. 

Someone was paying an unnerving amount of attention to Frenzy.

Discomforted by the thought that another carrier was considering poaching his cassette, Soundwave leaned down and picked Frenzy up in one arm. Frenzy's arms immediately wound around his neck, even as his attention was on the crowd they moved through. Ravage returned to his side without prompting from wherever the felinoid had been, and kept close as Soundwave made for the shopping district exit. Safety was, and would always be, his primary concern when it came to his family. If the watcher was interested in Frenzy it was possible that they'd be dissuaded by simply removing Frenzy from their sight. If not, well, it had been a while since Ravage had, had a chance to practice his skills.

The attention waned once they left, but Soundwave had trouble fully scrubbing the sensation from his thoughts. It had been disturbing to feel a mind seemingly that obsessive. Pulling Frenzy closer, Soundwave acknowledged the ping from Lazerbeak, and unpacked the attachment.

A mech, tall and broad for his build, stared out of the picture with piercing, red optics. The stare was as unnerving as his mind, if this had, in fact, been the correct mech. Soundwave knew that Lazerbeak did not miss, but for a moment he hoped that his symbiot had made a mistake. There was something about this mech that unnerved the carrier to the core.

Shaking off his unease, Soundwave reassured himself that no street thug would be getting his disgusting hands on a single one of His.


	8. Warlord Meet TIC

The first time Megatron mentioned Soundwave was after the seventh time he'd watched the mech go about his day. He'd gone above ground earlier in the cycle to study the goings-on of the people he would one day liberate, and once more found the blue mech in the crowd. 

He didn't mean to, it was just something that happened. 

There was a pull to the blue mech that no one else he'd watched had. That, and he was always curious about who would be accompanying the mech that cycle.

He'd finally been lucky enough to see the little mech – micro-bot, he reminded himself – again. He'd seen several since finding Rumble, but he'd never seen one quite like his own before. They were built differently. Smaller, more delicate, svelte even, though he'd never say that aloud to Rumble. The mech had a complex he simply did not have the patience to deal with most of the time.

The micro-bot had been trailing along after the large blue one with a lackluster stride. Whatever they had been doing was obviously uninteresting to the smaller of the pair, but he wasn't willing to leave the blue one's side to find entertainment for himself. 

So alike, and so different from his own micro-bot...

Megatron hummed in thought as he continued to plug away at the logic problems his builders had given him. It wasn't that they were difficult (none of them were anymore, honestly) there were just so many! It was boring, and a waste of time as far as he was concerned, but there wasn't anything else to do until Rumble returned from his exploration.

Speak of rust, Megatron thought with a smirk as he heard Rumble's customary cursing.

The micro-bot grumbled to himself heatedly as he did his best to wipe the dust off his frame. He looked like he'd been dunked in ash, and had the disposition to match. Megatron laughed as he watched.

Rumble turned on him, snarling, “Oh yeah, buckethead? Keep laughing! See who details your hide next time you take a trip down dent lane.”

Megatron's smirk turned predatory as he shot forward, fingers hooked to scoop the scraplet up. Rumble thrashed against Megatron's hold, but they both knew that if Rumble truly wanted to be released it would be an easy feat. Even Megatron was not made of stern enough stuff to stand up to Rumble's pile-drivers.

Finally going still Rumble grumbled as Megatron pinned him, back to chest with the larger mechanism.

“Do you want a companion?” Megatron asked.

Stunned, Rumble blinked several times before he looked up at Megatron's chin. The larger mech was staring steadfastly forward as he always did when he was deep in thought.

“Yer jokin' right?” Rumble asked, baffled. The Pit had that come from?

“No,” Megatron replied as he looked down to meet Rumble's optics, “you are the only one of your kind here. It has been explained that Cybertronians are social creatures. The builders have each other, I have no need for another, but you are alone. Would you like a companion?”

Rumble stared, gobsmacked. A nervous flutter licked through his spark. Hearing Megatron talk in such a detached tone, like he wasn't a mech himself, always set his denta on edge, but the mech did have a point. Was he lonely? Was he, Rumble, Ruler of the Tunnels, kind of sick of having only himself for company most of the time?

“Yer not kidnappin' anyone fer me, clear?” It was astonishing that he still had to ask questions like that, but Megatron had trouble wrapping his mind around the concept that he wasn't allowed to just take things. It was a discussion they'd had several times. It didn't seem to go anywhere.

Megatron's heavy brow swept forward in mild irritation, “That wasn't my plan.”

Really, that had happened once, and it hadn't even been for Rumble, and it had turned out well in the end anyways.

“There is a mech I wish to give you to, I believe he would treat you well, and he has one just like you,” Megatron explained as he bodily turned Rumble in his lap to face him. “And I wish to know more about him.”

Rumble's mouth hung open in astonishment. Did Megatron just- Oh Pit no!

“You fraggin' idiot! You can't just go givin' mechs other mechs ya glitched welder! And who the Pit says it's alright to just give me away?!” Rumble vibrated in Megatron's grasp with fury. “You're lucky I don't dent you one ya rusted piece of gutter junk.”

Megatron stared at the micro-bot in his hold, confused. “You're mine. I have need of you to investigate a potential ally. What better than to simply have you become one of his while keeping your true allegiance to me?”

Rumble's mouth worked soundlessly as he absorbed just how broken a world view Megatron had. Mouth clicking shut, Rumble sighed and said tiredly, “Alright, put me down, this is gonna take awhile.”

Still confused, but now curious, Megatron put the mech down and got comfortable, logic problems completely forgotten.


	9. Once More With Feeling

The first time the Twin Terrors meet each other after their long separation it's by complete accident.

“Rumble?”

Soundwave shivered as cold shock sliced through the bond, and hot focus slipped into his mind. The dueling sensations sent him tumbling, but he never impacted the ground. Black hands were wrapped around his shoulders, steadying him, and red optics, optics he knew from spending cycles bent over surveillance footage looked at him with surprise.

“Frenz?”

The red optics turned, reluctantly from him towards the micro-bots. Neither had moved, but they vibrated where they stood as if lit alight with voltage.

It wasn't clear which one moved first as they slammed together in an embrace, but it didn't seem to matter. Excited chatter rose in volume as if trying to beat the other in a contest for who could be the most exuberant the loudest.

Soundwave extricated himself from the grey plated mech's hold. It was clear that the only reason he was free of that grasp was because the mech had allowed it, and that frayed Soundwave's wires.

Rumble squeezed hard enough that Frenzy hissed from a dent. In retaliation Frenzy jabbed at Rumble's shoulder joint. It devolved from there to swatting at each other, laughing.

A cough, not so quiet finally interrupted them.

Turning, and utterly unrepentant, Rumble smiled, hand still clasped with Frenzy's.

“Soundwave, meet Rumble,” Frenzy started.

“Megatron, meet Frenzy,” Rumble continued.

“My partner in crime,” They finished, once again in so very long, together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art can be found here! http://silverblades2.livejournal.com/1022.html
> 
> Thanks to the lovely ladies over at http://tf-reversebang.livejournal.com/ for hosting such a great event! I enjoyed the project, and had a great time working back and forth with my artist!


End file.
